Wilson School group receives grant for bio-security research

The Carnegie Corporation of New York awarded a $149,000 grant to a Wilson School research group, the Program on Science and Global Security last week. The group will study the direction of biological weapons and defense research. The funds bring the total amount given to the PSGS in recent months for the study of nuclear and biological weapons to more than $2 million.

The grant will fund a yearlong study titled "The Biodefense Challenge: How Should the Life-Science Research Community Respond?" The program will include research by the co-directors of the PSGS, a one-day workshop on bioterrorism, monthly seminars for the University community and a new undergraduate course on chemical and biological weapons.

"The government is giving billions of dollars a year into research and development to protect the country against biological attack," said Frank von Hippel, co-director of PSGS with Harold Feiveson.

"That comes with lots of regulations and various challenges to the openness of the molecular biology research community," he said.

Von Hippel expects the program will address several recent controversies that have engaged the political and scientific communities.

The group will study the appropriate level of security for potentially dangerous research. The recent publication of an article that revealed a method to make smallpox more deadly prompted the debate.

"Sometimes scientists just forge ahead without really thinking about the consequences of their work, especially the unintended consequences," said Laura Kahn, a medical doctor and research scientist at the PSGS. "The goal is to open their perspective a bit and to get them to think beyond the science they're trying to accomplish to what could be the side effects of this science."

Politicians and scientists are struggling to defend the secrecy of U.S. biotechnology programs in the international community, von Hippel said. The United States must be willing to let other countries adopt similar policies of secrecy to avoid being hypocritical, yet it must still ensure that others are not developing hostile biological weapons, he said.

The study will also explore the development and funding of vaccines for diseases that are not naturally occurring as well as the danger of entering a biotechnological arms race, creating deadly diseases solely for the purpose of knowing whether we can defend against them.

Many dangers will arise "if we don't absolutely control what we produce," von Hippel said.

The biodefense study began Monday with a day-long workshop entitled "The Biodefense R&D Agenda."

Guest lecturers helped to educate the audience about the current policies and controversies surrounding biomedicine.

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"I would venture to guess that many people only know about bioterrorism and biodefense from the anthrax scare and from 30-second sound bites they hear about smallpox and other viruses," said Lynn Enquist, editor of the Journal of Virology, a member of the molecular biology department and guest speaker at the program's workshop.

"I think this is a really admirable effort to get information on something that's just sort of happening," he said.

Scott Steele GS '03, who originally proposed the study to the PSGS, hopes the program will help students explore their opportunities and responsibilities to determine policy in the field of molecular biology.

"This program is a grassroots movement in its initial phase," Steele said.